Page 31 of Love Beneath the Guillotine
17
A PHEASANT MOMENT BETWEEN ENEMIES
The scheme took hold in Léon’s mind so quickly and so thoroughly that he was occupied with it all the way back to Henry’s cabin in the woods.
It was sound.
Souveraine had taken some convincing, but she was on board, more or less. Now, there was just the matter of talking to his brother’s kidnapper, the vile madman that he was, and convincing him to leave the plot in Léon’s hands.
The excitement he felt at the thought of freeing Catherine was unprecedented. He hadn’t felt so elated since childhood. Indeed, he had forgotten that feeling existed—locked it away long ago—and now, between that and the very large brandy, he found himself feeling almost a strange sort of ally to Henry.
He hated him, no doubt. Would have loved to tell everyone what he’d done. Would have loved to see him have his day in court, to see him convicted, and to have taken his head himself. But the aim they both now shared softened that burning hatred just a little.
But what, Léon worried, trudging deeper into the moonless, midnight-black woods, would he find when he came back tothe cabin? He slowed his pace and thought how to announce himself. He didn’t want to spook him, should he have the gun aimed at Émile. He would need to call out that he had returned, alone, and play himself off as no threat. For, after all, he was not one. Not anymore.
Léon took a deep breath, ready to pose as the compliant peacemaker—ready to use every skill of diplomacy he’d learned to survive—ready to look into the heart of darkness and smile placidly. But then the light dawned on him. A warm flicker of firelight some way off in the distance. He quickened his pace and came upon a scene that was the last he would ever have expected.
By instinct, his eyes sought Émile first. He sat on a log, a plate of food on his lap, lit by the bright and crackling fire, a wide smile on his face. A laugh rippled out of him. He picked up whatever he was eating and shoved some more in, heartily, staring fondly across at his captor, following whatever he was saying with staid attention.
And there, across from Émile, pushing something about in the fire, was Henry. His form was as irritatingly handsome as ever, the leather of his breeches stretching across his thighs with the movement, and his shoulders, relaxed, the work of his arm easy, and what little Léon could see of it from his vantage point, a smile that was convivial and… Léon refused to call it kind or warm or sweet or any of the things he might have attributed to it were it any other person.
“I’m back,” he said coldly, revealing himself in the firelight.
“Léon!” Émile was before him in an instant, arms wrapped around his waist, babbling about Henri this, Henri that, and every detail of the wonderful afternoon they’d supposedly had while Léon had endured one of the worst of his entire life.
Seeing his brother safe and happy kicked the support of panic from beneath Léon’s feet, and suddenly feeling utterlyexhausted, he all but collapsed onto the log Émile pulled him to, only to be assaulted with phrases like, ‘the most wonderful swim in the river,’ and, ‘he’s the very best at bird calls,’ and ‘lets me have all the cake I can eat,’ and “the most amazing hunter. He caught us the fattest partridge, only by?—”
“Now, hadn’t I sworn you to secrecy about that?” Finally, Henry’s deep voice cut into the childish whirlwind of adoration, and Émile’s look was exactly that of a sneaky child who knew he’d done wrong, but who knew he was likely to get no real reprimand from his new favourite adult.
“It’s only Léon,” Émile attempted.
Henry, who’d kept his eyes keen on his task in the fire, shook his head.
Émile gave in with the slightest change in conversation, directed at Léon. “Taste it.” He grabbed a handful of meat from his plate and shoved it in Léon’s face. Léon pulled back, like any normal person who suddenly has something thrust almost up their nose, but with twice the ire because this was Henry’s food. Yet it was also then that Léon became aware of the way his hands shook. Not because of stress and fear and exhaustion, though it was partially because of all those things too, but it was primarily from hunger. He hadn’t eaten a thing for a full day and night, nothing but that triple brandy, and his body was in revolt.
It smelled good, whatever they’d been eating, and his stomach begged for it with a loud growl. But Léon only sat there, glowering into the firelight.
Henry stood, the tall and powerful length of him moving in opposition to the way he had the night before. The slow stalk across the bar room floor was now replaced by a swift, almost nervous lightness. Well, no wonder, Léon thought to himself. He must have known how much Léon hated him. But even if he did, he carried on, pulling his food from the fire, busying himself with whatever it was.
“Are you all right?” Léon asked his brother, quietly and seriously, now that Henry was hidden behind a flame and a crackle.
“I’m great,” Émile said matter-of-factly. Then he set off on another of his tales about how wonderful his kidnapper was.
Léon shushed him with a finger over his lips, his body turning in full towards Émile, head dipping close in authoritative sympathy. “We’ll be going home tomorrow. First thing. You sure you’re okay?”
Émile’s face fell. “I don’t want to go home.”
That hardly surprised Léon either, if half the things the boy was going on about were true. It sounded like a marvellous day in the forest, running free and stuffed full of good food. Nothing like his day to day in town, hungry and wretched.
The pink in Émile’s cheeks, the boisterous spirit of him, drove a hot iron of guilt into Léon. It was all the simple things he would have loved to give his brother. Food and freedom. Not the dirty, grubbing life the pair of them had been condemned to.
Henry addressed him for the first time since he’d returned, and he did it softly, his voice submissive, in a way. “We have extra.”
Émile’s eager eyes watched the plate of food that Henry tapped down by Léon’s side. The boy narrated, “It was the fattest partridge you’ve ever seen.”
“So you said,” Léon replied, ignoring both the food and Henry.
But then Henry required an answer. “What did you find out?”
